nonsense

You Dancin’? You Askin’?

Bella is a Liverbird
who sits atop a tower
and waits upon the clock face
to hit the midnight hour
for that’s the time the pubs let out
and boys come out to play
then she’ll swoop down for a handsome one
and with him fly away,
and there up on her skybound perch
she’ll set him in her nest
and do to him the nicest things
that Liverbirds do best.

Breaking Fast

gin palace breakfast bowl
old fat Henry Tudor roll
watching wooden tulips grow
big red bus to Old Kent Road
chandelier spider-threads
reminding me of Pier Head
Mr Wimpey dropped down dead
and slipped into the river cold,


somewhere in the heart of town
a pair of yellow boots were found
which stomped my nation underground
with it all our future’s sold
and so dear friends my song is done
I’m off to sing another one
before the inspiration’s gone
or if the day grows old.

The Ghostly Verse of Christmas Past

Presents

one-sies are quite nice I guess
in their own particular way
but I’d prefer you in your none-sie
when I wake on Christmas day

Humbug

A Christmas carrot
for the goat of christmas past
say baa not humbug

Needles

don’t put your tree up early
as it really is a chore
to pick the needless needles
up from off the floor

Kitty In The Tinsel

kitty in the tinsel
glitter on her paws
waiting underneath the tree
with sharpened santa claws
kitty ringing sleigh bells
all around the house
ready with her mistletoe
for when she sees a mouse

The Cucking

there was a little cuckoo
who cucked but couldn’t koo
so went asking all the other birds
just what he could do

the rook lent him a  roaring craw
the owl a twit to woo
a goose honked in longing tones
but nobody had the koo

so he left his woodland home
and went to Liverpool
and joined a group of pigeons
who thought his cuck was coooooool

The Worst Verse

I wrote this poem backwards
to see where it would start
if its seed was in my head
or it grew in my heart
and then I turned it inside out
the surest rhymes to find
decided it could do without
a certain measured time
but after all I set a fire
and in it through my verse
thinking that cast to the flames
it couldn’t get much worse
therefore I started up again
and forwards did compose
thus these simple lines appeared
to bring me to a close.

You Can’t See The Wood

today we’ll plant a million trees
but cut two million down
and those that fall we do not see
so they don’t make a sound
it doesn’t matter what we grow
be it cedar, pine or oak
as they in time will likely go
and thus the world will choke
but still we’ll plant a million trees
two million to replace
for this is part of the disease
we call the human race.